In July we held our Season 4 and Year 2 dev diary where we showed the world what to expect over the next 12 months in TDUSC. Today, we go into more details about what you can expect in Season 5 and when the next news on TDUSC is coming.
Season 5 Details
Timecycle
UI Overhaul
KT Engine Improvements
Water Shaders
Performance
Construction Sites
Economy
Race Payouts
FRIM
Car Selling
Vehicle Improvements
Cruise Control
Bug Fixes & Improvements
Live Events
Mid-Season Update
Monetisation
Previous Solar Pass Vehicles
New Vehicles
Ford GT Pre-Order
Release Date
Sounds
Season 5 Cars
What’s Next?
Season 6 Details
Physical Clothing Stores
Detective Mode
Community Spotlight Winner - September
Winners
How To Enter
Coming Up Next
Console & PC Gameplay
Taxi Mission & Poker Tease
Season 5 Feature Showcase Livestream
October Solar Club Letter
Season 5 will bring Poker, construction sites, taxi missions, economy improvements, the KT Engine update, bug fixes (Daily Challenges) and more! Let’s go over some of these features in more detail!
The KT Engine is being improved for Season 5 and with that, players will see new lighting, shadows, reflections, and more. We improved the timecycles of both islands, so let’s go over some of the new colours you’ll be seeing on each TDUSC island.
Hong Kong Island: Hong Kong Island gets many improvements to TDUSC, so let’s take a look at some of these!
Ibiza: As mentioned in the last letter, we made the decision to improve the timecycle on Ibiza. Here’s some of the amazing views you can expect to see!
In charge of this new look is KT’s art director, Stephane Cambier. Here’s what he has to say about the Season 5 changes and what players can still expect to see after Season 5.
“For Season 5, we focused on several key areas:
Main Menu:
With Thibault Drevon, our aim was to shift away from a "techno-digital" feel towards a more realistic environment. The goal was to immerse players in the driver experience, offering a glimpse of the in-game housing.
Lighting:
Working with the lighting team, we made nice improvements.
While further engine improvements are needed for post-processing, the overall objective was to achieve a cinematic mood throughout the game. We also sought to differentiate the two islands:
Hong Kong: Mimics the atmosphere found in various Asian driving community videos.
Ibiza: Emphasizes the heat and vibrant colors reminiscent of a postcard.
Tracks and Races:
Working with Guillaume Guinet, we are working on improving the races on both Ibiza and Hong Kong Island (HKI).
Ibiza: Received a complete identity change, featuring more enclosed spaces and a structured feel, similar to Formula 1 races in Monaco or Macau.
Hong Kong: Still under development, with the aim of creating a new proposition less futuristic but giving as much freedom that they do for now. We want to keep this Open Road vibe on HKI races that define a Test Drive Unlimited Experience.", hopefully ready for Season 6.
Future Plans:
We plan to introduce the physical clothing store, which was not ready for Season 5.
We are continuously exploring ways to improve the game to better sync with Hong Kong Island’s vibe without forgetting our game performance… and of course there's significant work planned for the housing system.”
Stéphane Cambier / TDUSC Art Director
TDUSC is going through a major UI overhaul. In Season 5, we deliver some important improvements. So let’s start with the main menu. To help describe the changes, here’s Thibault Drevon, the lead UI Designer working on TDUSC at KT Racing.
“In Season 5 we take the first step in a global UI rework to improve the visibility and art direction of the interface. The philosophy behind the change of the pause menu is to highlight your car and your character on the center of the screen. The buttons and navigation have been repositioned to optimize the space and let the 3D shine over 2D. We also had a lot of details to our global UI such as radius corner and drop shadow for more clarity. Last but not least, we have changed our hovered button color to feel more classy and less in a sci-fi mood.”
Thibault Drevon / TDUSC Lead UI Designer
We have made other changes to the UI which you will see as you explore the world. From improving how the Alyss menu looks, free-roam race pop-ups, and we’ve even added cool notifications for events happening in the open world so you never miss that high-payout mission!
We’ll continue to work on the UI/UX design of TDUSC throughout the coming seasons.
Although some of the KT Engine improvements are behind the scenes of the player, improvements like this are what allow us to improve the overall performance of the game with new rendering techniques. Even with the arrival of Season 5’s changes, we know there is still work to be done on the performance of the game, and we created a dedicated optimisation team to help with this. Moving forward, let’s see what you can expect to arrive in Season 5
Water Shaders: Since the last time we discussed this, we have made some new improvements to the water shaders. You’ll now be able to find waves appearing on the beaches in Ibiza, and a further improved water tone colour. Below are some screenshot examples of this, along with more screenshots from Hong Kong Island’s waterways.
Performance: We are working hard on the improvements of the games performance on consoles and PC. This new initiative arrives from a team dedicated to the games optimisation, so rest assured, Season 5 will not be the end of performance improvements. We don’t expect major changes to the framerate with the arrival of Season 5, as we optimised the game, to then improve the current rendering techniques. However, you should still see improvements on performance, and we plan to increase PC and console performance/framerate further in the coming updates with our dedicated optimisation team.
In charge of the technicalities behind the engine changes is Fabien Fumeron, the Technical Director at KT Racing. Here’s some details about the performance and optimisation coming in Season 5, and beyond…
“Season 5 brings a major iteration of the Kt Engine rendering engine.
The most visible improvements concern rendering, with particular attention to shadows and water shaders, which have been revised. Less visible but equally important work has also been done on the rendering pipeline to better balance it.
This evolution of our engine is the culmination of almost a year's work by our engine team on the subject. However, its release also marks the launch of a long-term optimization campaign that will allow us to improve both quality and performance over the seasons.”
Fabien Fumeron / KT-Racing Technical Director
Construction sites arrive in Season 5 of TDUSC! Of course you will see more as the Seasons progress, but let’s quickly discuss what you can see in Season 5!
Ibiza: You’ll be able to find 2 beautiful house location construction sites in Season 5. We won’t tell you where they are exactly, but we don’t mind teasing one of them!
Hong Kong Island: Although no construction sites are present on HKI yet, you may notice a map change somewhere on the island near a twisty road.
However, in Season 6, you’ll be able to see more construction sites present, including the creation of the Official Racing Center which arrives in Season 7.
You’ll continue to see house construction sites throughout the next seasons as their official arrival is set to be seen in Season 8, day one. We’ve made a lot of progress on many designs already, so be sure to look at the environments around the house to get the bigger picture!
"The construction sites are a way for you to follow the development and see our progress on the Housing and the other future features. Thanks Pierre for his Job on this!
For houses, the idea is to let you start to project yourself on what houses you might want to buy, see the spot and yeah maybe start dreaming of what can be these houses!
We will add a construction site for ORC and real estates too and yeah for the ORC, you will know where it is when the construction site will appear.
Just for you to know, Clément, Guillaume & others are doing a great job on the ORC, I know people will love it! We can't wait to show you our progress on it!
We will continue to add more of these to let you see where and what we are working on!"
Guillaume Guinet / TDUSC Game Director
A big thing that has to happen in TDUSC is the improvement of its economy. It’s been a large player request over the past seasons, and we are finally here to deliver it. Before we go over some of the details, here’s Guillaume’s words about the economic improvements in TDUSC.
"We did a big load of work in design, programming and UI to change a lot of things in the Economy.
We wanted the player progression to be more rewarding but we wanted to keep the TDU DNA too; so we won't spoil the player and keep the progression meaningful and create joy when you finally buy the car you cherish and wanted for all this time.
It was quite a challenge but I think we have found the right balance here.
As usual, we are waiting the feedback of the community. We will continue to improve economy by giving you new ways to earn money and adjust balancing."
Guillaume Guinet / TDUSC Game Director
Thanks Guillaume! Now let’s go into the details of the race payouts, FRIM, and car selling!
Race Payouts: We’ve increased the payouts of all races found on both Ibiza and Hong Kong Island. One of the biggest changes comes to the Crown Jewel races, with one of them now paying out before bonuses 1,000,000 Solar Coins!
For other events and races found in TDUSC, you’ll find all payouts have been increased, and are also based on the time you put into them, so no matter how you play TDUSC, whether it be a 2 min Navigation Race, a 9 minute Car Delivery, or a 20 minute Crown Jewel, you’ll be paid equally for the time you’ve put in.
FRIM: This gets a complete overhaul in Season 5. Let’s go over all of the improvements and changes to FRIM, which we believe to be more aligned with the TDU DNA, and improve how players can earn and navigate in the world. FRIM now lets you earn Reputation and Solar Pass XP in addition to the Solar Coin output. We’ve also removed the cash-in cap on FRIM which means you can cash-in as much as you want, and you’re no longer limited to earning 1,000,000 Solar Coins every 24 hours. FRIM now levels up differently with a max level of 99.
Among the aforementioned improvements, we’ve also added new ways to fill up your bar. You can now earn FRIM by just cruising. This opens up the ability for players of all types to enjoy FRIM, no matter how you play. Previously, you were always limited to the skills you could do with FRIM. We are now removing that limit, so you could drift as much as you want, cruise as much as you want, weave through traffic as much as you want, and not get penalised! The ability to cash in has been changed. Previously, you had a limited amount of time to cash-in, now, you can do it whenever, wherever… as long as you don’t hit another car that is. We have deleted Special Skill chains as it was a complicated feature within FRIM, we also removed things like burnout, 0-100, and some others to make the design of the FRIM more consistent, and these were replaced with features like 'clean driving'. We are rewarding you for driving your vehicle, not just doing skills repetitively that has no meaning. We are excited for the players to try out FRIM in Season 5!
Car Selling: It’s coming. Although we mentioned in the developer diary we weren’t sure when it would arrive, we decided to bring this feature to Season 5’s economy improvements. You’ll be able to find this NPC in the Solar Hotel
Once you open the menu, you’ll be able to sell your vehicles, with the sell prices varying depending on the odometer distance, upgrades, and vehicle options you have added at the dealership or workshop.
Your depreciation price will also change depending on the vehicle itself. For example a daily driver will have a lower depreciation value than a hypercar.
Vehicles are an important part of the Test Drive Unlimited DNA, and with that, we have to make sure our vehicles hold a standard the TDU community expects in such a game. In Year 2, the amazing vehicle artist team and game designers are improving the vehicle features, and correct some of the issues players have long reported. Let’s discuss this more.
Cruise Control: With the arrival of Taxi Missions in Season 5, we will be adding cruise control to the Alyss menu. The cruise control has two modes to use.
Speed Hold/Cruise - In this mode, the vehicle's acceleration will stay at the assigned speed. You can increase and decrease this speed in the same Alyss menu. Coming to a stop will automatically turn the cruise control off.
Speed Limiter - In this mode, the vehicle's acceleration is controlled by you, and the assigned speed is the limiter. You can increase and decrease this speed in the same Alyss menu.
Important Note: You can use cruise control anywhere in TDUSC, including of course within Taxi Missions, Car Delivery Missions, Freeroam, and more! This feature might not work day one for electric vehicles, but we will let you know!
Bug Fixes & Improvements: In Season 5, we tackled a lot of issues surrounding our vehicle models, and below are just some of the improvements you will see in Season 5.
We’ve added the correct dynamic indicators to the US-based Shelby GT350R, and the Mercedes-AMG GT R and Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series. There are of course, many other smaller issues regarding the vehicles models of TDUSC, and we are continuing to work on these vehicles throughout the next seasons, such as the correct P/S gauge on the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport.
Please continue to share any discrepancies you see with the vehicles in TDUSC. We have much more to work on, such as the wheel size of the Ferrari F40, and the headlight animation of the Lamborghini Miura SV, the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE shift animation, and more.
There are many other improvements coming to the vehicles of TDUSC outside of Season 5, including but not limited to the development of improved steering animation, vehicle stalling and much more.
On another note, you can expect some new customisation options coming to TDUSC in Season 5. We’ll reveal this next month!
Season 5 is where live event rewards are improved. We can confirm not a single sticker will be present in the live event rewards for Season 5. Below is an example of what you can expect to see for live events in Season 5!
The Alpine A110 Légende gets an incredible livery for a Season 5 live event! We know you’ll ask other questions about the screenshot though, but we need to reassure you that ONLY the livery will be rewarded in the live event in Season 5, any other vehicle modification you may see will be discussed at a later date… though of course, it will still arrive in Season 5!
More licensed clothes arrive in TDUSC’s Season 5, with your chance at receiving a PUMA t-shirt and shoes! Also yes, we did change the wardrobe, more details on this to come!
Unlike the last seasons, there will be no feature content arriving in the mid-season update, however, we don’t want there to be any surprises when it comes to monetisation in TDUSC. The mid-season update will bring the online store, which will allow players to purchase licensed clothing, vehicles, previous live event rewards, and more. Let’s quickly discuss this.
Monetisation: Items in the online store will be purchasable with Diamonds. With the addition of this shop, we will be giving players the ability to earn free Diamonds by claiming their Diamonds in the store once a week.
Previous Solar Pass Vehicles: Currently, players do not have any way to earn the previous Solar Pass vehicles. In the mid-season update, we will be adding the previous Solar Pass vehicles to the online shop for players to purchase.
New Vehicles: Every season, we will be releasing 3 additional vehicles to the online store. These vehicles can be special licensed or unlicensed bodykits of existing vehicles in-game, or they will be completely licensed special models of existing vehicles in-game. An example of this is the Mercedes-AMG SLS Black Series, arriving in the online store in Season 6, or the Nissan GT-R ‘The Tyger’ widebody kit arriving in the Season 5 mid-season update.
You can also expect to find some incredible collaborations with other real life brands involved in the car scene in future seasons, which we can’t wait to share with you!
Ford GT Pre-Order: The Ford GT was available as a pre-order bonus in TDUSC before the game launched. In the mid-season update for TDUSC, we are looking to make this possible for purchase soon.
Important Note: One thing we aren’t happy about is the experience when receiving premium vehicles. You’re missing out on the actual dealership experience (customising the car, choosing the rims, etc), and although you can do this in the workshop after the vehicle is purchased, this is something we are going to make feel more special in a later update (especially when comparing purchasing DLC for TDU2).
All this is cool, but when exactly is TDUSC’s Season 5 arriving? Well, Season 5 will be arriving late October, and we will be revealing its exact date next month. Before its release, you’ll be seeing console and PC gameplay, Taxi Mission and Poker teases, and a developer livestream that will cover all of the features arriving in Season 5. More details on this are at the end of the letter.
The sounds of Season 5 are taking form, but what’s arriving after? Let’s find out!
So far in Season 5, we’ve confirmed the Aston Martin DBS Superleggera and the De Tomaso P72 so far, although since you guessed it right, the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 will arrive in Season 5 too! These vehicles each feature distinctive sounds, and the sound designers have worked really hard on them, so let’s hear the De Tomaso P72 roar!
Back in July, we shared the results of the sound design survey in which players had the opportunity to vote on what car sounds they’d like to see improved in the game.
“For the P72 it was very complicated to find some sourc ematerials because it is a new car, and no one has it. It is a special car with a 5.0L V8 supercharged, but we think did well in recreating the distinct sound of the DeTomaso P72.
For the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, it was a challenge to make the sound of this vehicle in TDUSC comparing from Endurance Motorsport Series. We had to keep the good work that the team from EMS did, while integrating the TDU DNA into it's design.
For now, we are focusing on the different Season features on sound design, but we want to tackle in the next months the mix of all AI vehicle in the world, including your opponents. We are also looking at the feedback from players on vehicles such as the Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato and other community feedbacks.”
Guillaume Guinet / TDUSC Game Director
Season 6 brings physical clothing stores, and Detective Mode! Let’s discuss these topics so show you the road ahead after Season 5… although, we still have some more surprises to be shown, and closer to the Season 6 update, we can’t wait to show this!
Clothing stores are set to arrive in Season 6 of TDUSC as our lighting artists finish the work on Season 5’s timecycles. The last time you saw pictures of the stores, their lighting was in an early phase, so we’d like to share with you some updates we’ve made since then!
Streets: Located near the current Street Clan Shop on Ibiza, this store features a beautiful blue night hue, similar to that of the nightclub of the Street Clan on Hong Kong Island. We are excited for the store to finally open its doors in January 2026.
Sharps: We have some work to do on the lighting of the Sharps store, so for now we can only remind you of the exterior!
Once these stores release, we will also be adding physical stores to the Street and Sharp clan hubs on Hong Kong Island too. With this, there will be no more chest rewards, and instead, all items will be able to be purchasable in the Ibiza and Hong Kong Island stores. This, further goes in the direction of the TDU DNA and we are excited for this future with you!
Important Note: The clothing stores can be visited by either clan member.
In the last letter, we announced Detective Mode is the winning voted mission for Season 6. We’ve already started working on the development of this feature, and although we can’t go into all the details about it yet, here is what Guillaume has to say!
“In Detective Mode, we want to improve the immersion of the player giving him a new dimension of roleplayer with their vehicle. We want to go further than the previous trail mission that was featured in TDU2.
We can't share much on this now, but as we get closer to the release of Season 6, we will be sure to share more details on what you can expect to see!”
Guillaume Guinet / TDUSC Game DIrector
Last letter, we announced that the Community Spotlight will go over some new changes so players can now vote for the winners in our Discord, and there will be prizes to win! Let’s take a look at the results from September!
There have been some amazing pictures sent in for this month's Community Spotlight, but here are the top 3 voted photos for the month of September!
Discord member Destroyer-GT wins this month's Community Spotlight with their amazing sunset picture as they head North on an offroad section of TDUSC’s Hong Kong Island map! Congrats on getting 40 votes, your reward is 6,000,000 Solar Coins and 250 Diamonds.
Discord member PovverfulOZ takes second place in this month's Community Spotlight with their beautifully composed picture with the Chevrolet Corvette C1! Congrats on getting 31 votes, your reward is 4,000,000 Solar Coins and 100 Diamonds.
Discord member ManofManyNamesX comes third in this month's Community Spotlight with their night vibe photo in the town of Shek’O on TDUSC’s Hong Kong Island map! Congrats on getting 23 votes, your reward is 2,000,000 Solar Coins and 50 Diamonds.
As we get closer to the arrival of Season 5 and the Season 5 mid-season update which will bring the online store, we will start adding exclusive items from the online store to the rewards list of the Community Spotlight, including the winners photo showing on the in-game news section!
First, join our Discord which can be found at Discord.gg/TestDrive. Once you join our Discord, you’ll see a channel called ‘community-spotlight’. Here, you can send the best pictures you've taken in TDUSC! You aren't limited to cars, too. Feel free to send pictures of your liveries, cars, sceneries, garage, etc. The community will vote for the best photo to be featured in-game and win some prizes!
Here are the rules:
Pictures must be high quality and not edited outside of the game or taken with tools that are not native to TDUSC's in-game photo mode
Only 1 picture is allowed in a post
You are only allowed one post per month; however, you can delete your post and make a new one to replace it.
Each week, we will randomly choose pictures to repost on our social media
The top 3 voted posts in the month will win prizes
The most voted picture in the month will be selected to showcase in the in-game news section in TDUSC (Starts Season 5)
This thread will be wiped on the release of every Solar Club Letter
Note: Posting in this channel means you allow your picture to be used by Nacon/KT for promotional use.
Season 5 is releasing in late October, so you can expect some of the marketing around this season to rev up! Here’s all of the upcoming news to expect regarding TDUSC’s Season 5! All of these upcoming assets will arrive with a dedicated letter on our Steam and Reddit social page, so be sure to stay tuned!
This time around, we are going to make sure to show how TDUSC looks on PC and consoles. On October 9th, we’ll be sharing a handful of gameplay on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC. You’ll see various weather conditions, timecycles, and of course, races.
Poker and Taxi Missions will be arriving on day one of the Season 5 update along with the many other features. We’ll be sharing gameplay of both of these features on October 16th!
There are a lot of changes coming to TDUSC’s Season 5, so what better way to discuss these with you than hosting a livestream at KT’s Paris office!
On October 21st, we will be streaming TDUSC live on the Nacon Racing YouTube channel going through everything you'll find on day one of Season 5 with many of the developers who are working on TDUSC. Of course, during the stream we will be answering questions from the community regarding the upcoming season, and what’s in store for the game's future!
The October Solar Club Letter will arrive at the launch of Season 5, detailing all of the exciting features covered from the livestream and more!
We are working hard to make sure Season 5 is the best season so far for the TDU community, and as usual, we are excited for you to see the upcoming news releases in the coming weeks of October! See you soon!
The TDU Team